Green is glamorous: Recycle used clothes and save the environment

Environmental conservation meetings are the new trend these days. Many people are planting trees, others are advocating for the purity of industrial waste products among other going green measures. 

Friday, November 12, 2010

Environmental conservation meetings are the new trend these days. Many people are planting trees, others are advocating for the purity of industrial waste products among other going green measures. 

Textiles have not been spared from the environmental protection drill. People dump heaps of textiles daily yet these materials are useful in so many ways. When poorly disposed, they reduce the level of water penetration into the soil hence depleting it! This is bad news for our environment since it’s from this soil that we cultivate the food we eat.

Nearly half of the textiles thrown away each year are recyclable. Recycling cloth is important because of the benefits to the environment. Additionally, nearly 70 percent of the world uses second-hand clothing, so recycling your old clothes is a significant humanitarian act on the global scale.

Below are a few guidelines on recycling clothes:

Use them for Craft projects:

Examine the clothes, curtains, and other cloth items you aren’t using. Cut out swatches of fabric from pieces that are damaged or stained. Try to salvage as much as possible. Ribbons, laces and other trim can be useful as well and then categorize the materials you’ve collected. Put similar kinds of fabrics together as well as similar colors.

Having it organized will make it easier for you to find and use when you’re working on a craft project later on. This goes especially to people who are involved in crafts and designing. 

Re-use fabrics:

Reconsider how to use a fabric. For instance, you could sew old dish towels together to make a neat tote bag, or use old bath towels to make a pet bed. Ribbons and lace can become fun embellishments to craft projects.

Try felting old woolen pieces:

Felted bags are very popular and any wool that’s not pre-shrunk should felt nicely. Use fabrics in quilting projects to create unique patterns. Taking old well-loved items like t-shirts or baby clothes can add flair to a memory quilt.

Donate clothes:

Another way to dispose off used clothes is to donate them to church groups or charitable organizations like the Salvation Army. When donating shoes, be sure you tie them together, or use a rubber band to join them. This makes the process of getting shoes to the people who need them faster and avoids adding to the pile of mateless shoes.

There are millions of people out there who need these clothes but cannot have them. Why then just throw them away! Look around in your neighbourhoods, you will find that there are children who do not have what to put on and are moving around half naked!

There are very many charity organizations who are helping the orphans and we have so many student organizations who are moving out of their way to help many  young people in the country. So, instead of throwing away these clothes, just give them to these groups and they will deliver them to the right people.

If we were to mind the way we dispose our old clothes, the environment would be safer. Conserving the environment does not only mean planting trees, it begins with you. Dispose off all those old textiles in a proper way and then you would have saved mother Earth.

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